It’s been far too long since I strapped on a backpack and disappeared for a few days (13 months, to be exact). I was able to break the streak with a nice four–day affair on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
I left Salt Lake late, missed the first sunset Monday night, and woke up Tuesday to a very nice scene at Pt. Imperial. Headed over to the backcountry office, picked up permits for the next few nights in Tapeats and Deer Creek, and made our way over to Monument Point for the trailhead.
This was my first time hiking in the canyon and, I must say, the place delivers. Unbelievable scenery for days on end, fantastic November weather, a few cultural sites, the river, and a bit of a glimpse into a nice looking slot ... couldn’t ask for more, really.
Rounded off the trip with a run out to Toroweap. Got hit with a nasty storm on the way in, but it blew out by sunset and was able to make some nice images, both at sunset and sunrise. Pretty damn cool place if I do say so myself.
I was only a few days removed from the operating room table in early June when an email for this trip came from Slawa. Barely able to walk, I laughed it off. But in the back of my mind I thought, “Man, how awesome would it be to make it back by then?”
So, how about some hot, hot Kanab canyons on Aug 5, 6 and 7? We’ll meet the night of Aug 4 on the Kanab Plateau. Rich is leading this one. It will be HOT, it will be MISERABLE—4:00 AM departures to avoid the heat of the day, but it will be sooooooo AWESOME! Dan—honey—I will carry your stuff! And no need to make a decision now. Just keep this on your calendar and let me know when time arrives.
Alas, I’ve been able to get out on a couple overnight adventures in the last two weeks, and figured my fitness to be a bit better than I thought, even if I’m about 10 pounds heavier than I was in the spring. My goal was to go ultra–light and skip a canyon if I didn’t feel up to it. I got a pass from the group on carrying any group gear and was left with just the question of how to avoid the triple–digit temperatures we were sure to encounter. Rich swore there’d be water and we’d stay cool. Promises of early starts, canyons with plenty of water, a couple midday siestas, and great company had me convinced.
The agenda outlined a plan for some fine canyons in the Kanab area, none of which I have seen yet. Friday, we descended a small but action–packed drainage with some goodies in the Supai and Redwall slots, which eventually dropped into Kanab Creek where we camped for the evening. Saturday we descended the Muav and Temple Butte sections of another nearby slot, and then headed back upcanyon and upclimbed yet another beautiful Redwall slot back up to the Supai. Loaded with nearly two gallons of water each, we dry–camped just below the Esplanade, and left ourselves about 1500 feet of Grand Canyon sufferfest scree–scrambling back to the rim, hoping to top out early Sunday morning before the heat got to be too much.
Another worthy adventure in the big ditch.
Something tells me this is going to be one of the most popular canyoneering trips in the entire Grand Canyon. It has it all. Easy access, a trail to the head of the slot, a trail from the exit. It’s day–tripable, requires no permit, has amazing Zoroaster narrows (pink granite!), and a perennial stream that creates some of the most idyllic waterfalls imaginable.
As part of our plans to get some nice Class–C video of slots in Grand Canyon, I met up with Rich, Slawa, Anna, Bill, and the Putzig crew at the South Rim Village. I’ve spent over 100 nights in the Grand Canyon backcountry, and this is my first time ever seeing the Village. Is it any wonder? The place is a total zoo. We had little desire to camp at Indian Gardens in the epicenter of the mayhem, so we headed off at 4am from the Bright Angel Trail, and arrived at the head of the slot shortly after sunrise. We had fantastic light all the way through the canyon, and we were able to set up a handful of great shots for the video.
However, it’s not all fun and games. The exit requires a 6– or 7–mile hike, and 4500 feet of vertical or so to get out. It’s a slog but totally worth it. There’s no such thing as a casual canyon down here ...
No doubt, this is one of the gems in Grand Canyon, and it will certainly see a lot more traffic in the future, especially with Todd’s new book finally available for purchase.
Six months ago, I swore I’d never do this route again from the rim. Yet last week, I somehow convinced myself that it’s not that bad. It’s not that the route is particularly difficult or strenuous. It’s just that it is long. And pretty boring. And there is hardly any water. And it just might be 100 degrees out. In the full sun. In other words, it’s not that awesome. If you are fast and efficient, you could do it in one single overnight I suppose. But we are far from fast and efficient. Instead, we headed out early Wednesday morning with a solid assortment of cameras, tripods, sliders, and a camera zipline hoping to capture some nice video for the documentary we are working on. And of course, we had to carry six liters of water to make it all the way to the next reliable source. If all went well, we planned on exiting Friday morning. Three days. One canyon. Why is it that one of the most beautiful slots is so damned remote? Wait, now I remember. Because it’s the Grand Canyon, and they all seem to be like this.
It’s not all never–ending slog though. There is a slot out there. And it is pretty good. Actually, it’s really good. So I suppose you could argue the effort is eventually well–rewarded if you can manage to keep that little nugget in your brain while being scorched to death by the relentless Grand Canyon sun. It is certainly one of those trips that is way more fun to HAVE done, then it is to actually do ... But it only takes a few days, a few photos, and a few video clips to remind me how good it really is. And somehow, the slog doesn’t seem so bad anymore. Hell, if someone asked me to go again this weekend, I’d probably do it. And it might even be worth it.
The Esplanade in summer is a bad idea. It’s almost always too damn hot, shade is somewhat scarce unless you can find overhangs, and water sources are a total gamble. This is a trip that is much better in spring and fall. There is only one reason we did it in the heat: the Milky Way.
Rich and I had been batting around the idea of shooting the Milky Way as it passed behind the Dome for a few years. There’s a pretty narrow window when the galactic core is high enough in the sky that you can actually see it and the Dome, and the temps aren’t so ridiculously hot that you’ll suffer in the unrelenting sun.
It’s a weird enough combo of conditions you might wonder why it’s even a thing worth considering. And that’s a fair point. Rich and I might be the only two people who actually care.
Over the last couple of years Rich has been getting more into photography, especially time–lapses of iconic Grand Canyon scenes. When it comes to Western Grand Canyon and the Esplanade, the Dome is about as iconic as it gets.
The Esplanade is more or less perfectly flat, so when you are hiking across it you can see for miles in any direction. The only time the view is blocked is by the canyon rims or from a few huge towers like Sinyella and the Dome. That these towers even exist feels somewhat surprising. They stand like lighthouses on the slickrock, assisting in navigation in these slickrock seas.
In other words, definitely worthy of a few days of hiking in 90–degree heat to snap some photos.
Finding water is, without a doubt, the hardest challenge of the Esplanade. The slickrock itself generally lends itself to pretty easy hiking, with limited elevation gain or loss. But there are almost no permanent water sources. Your best bet are the waterpockets. In the summer, they dry up super fast, even after a monsoons have pounded the area.
Over the years, we’ve located a handful of fairly reliable potholes, and we figured if we could get out there within a few days of a monsoon, we’d probably have enough. Our confidence was boosted a bit knowing, if we couldn’t find water on the way out, we could just turn around and retreat to known sources before we got too far ahead of ourselves.
That plan worked really well, right up until our last location we needed to have water—Dome Pocket. This is a pothole so deep and massive it is even named on the USGS quad. Rumor is ranchers even improved some catchments around it to make it even more reliable. We were astonished to find it completely bone dry.
Fortunately, just a few hundred yards away we did find a very shallow pothole that had perfectly clear water—a literal lifesaver. Kind of boggles the mind how the biggest deepest pocket had no water in it, but one right next to it that is only a few inches deep had plenty. A good lesson about the unpredictability of water in the desert.
We spent the next two days hauling six liters of water around the Dome on the old Tuckup Trail (not much of a trail nowadays), shooting time–lapses out on Pocket Point, and hiding in alcoves during the heat of the day. After seeing the Dome from a distance on multiple trips in the Canyon over the years, it was super cool to get an up close view of it. It’s surprising how complex the terrain gets as you circumnavigate the base.
Our final campsite would put us right below the Dome, where conditions lined up perfectly and we had a killer view of the Milky Way on its transit behind the tower.
Dan
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